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Ambulatory Care Nursing is a different, unique type of nursing that is characterized by nurses responding quickly to many patients in a short amount of time while dealing with unpredictable issues. Ambulatory care nursing offers many different opportunities and challenges for nurses and demands that these nurses meet the needs and demands of ambulatory patients.
Job Description
There are many different ways to specialize as a registered nurse. Some make their choice by illness and disease, some by population or work setting. An ambulatory nurse provides care in clinics, on ambulances, day surgery units, ambulatory care surgeries, community centers, schools, workplaces, home care and in physicians’ offices. They specialize according to their setting, so they can treat a large variety of patients along with different illnesses and different levels of diseases. They are responsible for educating patients on how to manage their illness or injury or how to prevent illness. Some ambulatory care nurses will even provide care to patients through a phone call or internet. This is called telehealth.
Job Requirements
In order to seek a job as an ambulatory care nurse, you first need to be a qualified registered nurse with a minimum of two years experience. You do not need additional training to become an ambulatory care nurse but certification is available and preferred in some states. To receive your certification, you must document 2,000 hours experience in ambulatory care within the most recent three years.
Salary Expectations
Your salary as an ambulatory care nurse will greatly vary depending on the clinic or office and the type of care you are providing. Also affecting your salary will be the region, employer, and years of experience. Non-advanced nurses usually have a salary of about $50,000. An ambulatory nurse manager can expect an average salary of about $60,000.
Job Outlook
As fast as the healthcare industry is growing, it is easy to say that registered nurses will see roughly 587,000 job openings before 2016. Out of every occupation, this is the largest projected rate of growth. Since technology is allowing doctors to perform more procedures in ambulatory clinics and not in hospitals, the job outlook for an ambulatory care nurse is projected to grow even more.
